Donor-assisted Ethno-Nationalism and Health Education Policy in Bhutan

Paper for the International Workshop “Development Challenges in Bhutan”, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, 29-30 May, 2013.

Abstract
The paper aims to give an elaborate understanding of the raison d’être of the vertical and horizontal links between the overall planning and policy-making ideology and objectives. This will be exemplified with reference to an analysis of two key policies education and health which should be understood in their own right as state-sanctioned but donor financed policies inserted into the context with elite and government promotion of Gross National Happiness (GNH), Bhutanization, decentralization and guided democracy,
The paper is divided into four sections. The first section gives an overview of what can be defined as ‘dependency through self-reliance and selection’. The government and developmentalist elite and bureaucracy seems to be able to choose consciously who and where aid should come from and on what terms. It is used for specific purposes to steer development in a guided direction although the over-reliance on India questions this proposition. The second section deals briefly with the vernaculars of ethnic nationalism as a means to establish Drukpa national and cultural unity as a vehicle for modernization and progress. This section also looks at the ideology of Bhutanisation and how it is linked with GNH, decentralization and the introduction of democracy and good governance. The third part analyses the function of state modified education and health policies and tries to establish the links and synergies at the level of discursive input into planning to see what is to be expected by the policies of health promotion through education of the Bhutanese citizens. Finally a tentative conclusion is offered.